My daughter's diet

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Thanks to everyone for the welcome and all the suggestions. I'm glad to have somewhere to turn with her after struggling for so long. I've felt alone and isolated for a while with her.

's diet consists of shoestring french fries (HAS to be shoestring), peeled apples, ritz crackers, cheese nip crackers, pretzels, Reese PB cups, fruity pebbles cereal, cheese puff popcorn or reg popcorn, sometimes she will take other dry cereal such as cap n crunch or frosted mini wheats. And I recently got her to eat Trix yogurt (but only that brand). I can get her to eat ice cream in a cone but she won't eat the cone; just licks the ice cream out (only chocolate or vanilla though).

She will drink choc milk only and I do mix in either pediasure or boost but in a small amount because if I put too much in she notices the different taste and will refuse to drink it.

My youngest daughter was given a box of resource fruit beverage drinks that are loaded with vitamins and minerals after her hospital stay in May/June. They were in the house and when passed away I tried them with and she LOVED them. I got a prescription from the doc to get them, but our insurance won't cover them. And they are expensive ($46 for 24) and you have to mail order them. I've appealed this with the insurance company and 's ped has called them several times so I don't know if we'll ever get them covered.

She has been in feeding therapy since she was 1 1/2 and I have followed all the suggestions of the therapists. I was told to not put any pressure on her at mealtimes, make it relaxed, don't force her to eat anything, always offer her 1 or 2 items she will eat along with the items she won't. And basically we've gotten nowhere. My big concern is her diet consists of mostly junk and the therapists have all said this is fine. This is how we get her to transition over to other foods. We take what she will eat and slowly add new foods. The therapists also give her this same food and change one thing such as the shape of the pretzel or something like that. So now I have to get blood work drawn every 3 months because what is showing up is concerning. I do remember 1 thing that showed up was that her pre-albumin (sp?) was like 13 and they said it should be 20. I forget what else showed up but I know it has them concerned.

She has recently been referred to the Cleveland Clinic Feeding disorder program. There's a waiting list so we don't go in untill the end of Oct. for our evaluation. But I wonder if that will help at all.

If I give her a plate of food that has nothing on it she likes she will look at it and run screaming from the room yelling NO I don't like it. UGH so very frustrating. I just don't know what to do. It's like a very big brick wall.

Thanks again for the help. I really do appreciate it.

TERIMommy to 5, 10 HH, le, 8 HH, Brittany, 5 HH; , 4 HH, Autistic, feeding disorder; , forever 18 months, 13 days HLHS (Modified Norwood with Sano shunt; coarctation; Glenn & tricuspid valve repair, g-tube; became an Angel 6-22-06--I love you baby girl--Always & Forever))carepage name: Girlhttp://www.carepages.com/Login?seed=844556http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/p/peanutbutter5/